Update

I ran into our real estate agent today at the grocery store. He said that everything is really slow right now. He has five listings and almost no activity on any of them. He said that everyone in his agency is experiencing the same thing. So I guess I should feel better about no one coming to see my house?

About my second thoughts, I've come to accept that whatever happens, happens. And it will be okay. We do have a contract with our agent, and we're not going to get out of that. So if we get an offer we're happy with by the time the contract ends (December 13), fine. If not, we'll deal with that, too. I'm really okay with whatever happens. The baby will be coming the first of December, so if we haven't sold by then, she'll be upstairs in our room with us for a few weeks while we fix the basement bedroom. It will be okay. Actually, no matter where we are, she'll probably be in our room with us for at least the first few weeks. It makes nighttime feedings much easier.

In other updates, a detective has been assigned to try and figure out who has stolen the money from the hotel. He just met with Brandon (the GM) yesterday, so hopefully things will start moving a little more quickly there.

And in a good news update, one of the major groups that has to approve an award for a suggestion Jeff made at work, finally approved it. The bad part is that instead of the full award he should have gotten (which was quite large), they are taking half of that and dividing it between three people. So a little frustrating. But Jeff is just happy that they've approved anything. Honestly, it will still be enough for a nice vacation, which is what Jeff wants to do with it. There are still two other groups that need to approve it, but the hard part is done. It could be as soon as five weeks, or as long as two years. I'm guessing more along the lines of two years, since that's how the federal government works. But at least he'll get something.

Change of Heart? ....

We haven't had much activity on our house. We've had some people come look at it, but no one has come for the last two weeks or so. We lowered the price a little bit, but still nothing. I'm not discouraged, though. In fact, I'm sort of glad. I've been having second thoughts about the whole thing.

I guess I'm just wondering if we are crazy for leaving a great neighborhood and a great ward to move to a bigger house with a higher house payment. I was sitting in Relief Society a couple of Sundays ago, and it just hit me how much I really do love our ward. The last few years have been challenging for me because of my calling. I did enjoy the Primary, but it was really a lot of stress, too. But honestly, any ward we live in, I'll get callings, and some of those will be very challenging.

Our house payment right now is manageable - even comfortable. We can afford our mortgage easily and still save quite a bit of money. We COULD afford more. But should we?

Our biggest complaints about our current house are 1) we don't have three bedrooms on the main floor; and 2) the lot is really small. But honestly, Jeff and I can move into the spare room in the basement and turn that into our master bedroom. The kids would all be upstairs, but that wouldn't be the end of the world. We'd have to do a lot of work to make the basement room nice (like larger windows, sheet rock instead of wood paneling, and a better shower in the bathroom), and that would be expensive. But it would be okay. Then Michael could stay in the room he's in right now, and we'd put the girls in our current room.

We can't do anything about the lot size, so that might still be an issue. We really don't like being quite so close to our neighbors. But we do have a nice yard with a garden.

I'd even be willing to replace our carport with a garage that has storage space above it. All of these things would cost quite a bit, yes. But it would still be cheaper than paying for them in the form of a higher mortgage that wouldn't be quite as comfortable for us, and wouldn't allow us as much leeway to save for emergencies or for other things we want to do.

Am I crazy? Am I just freaking out because I'm female and pregnant and subconsciously nervous about moving and starting over somewhere else? Or should I really be paying attention to this?

You hurt your ankle HOW?

My husband is a gimp. He sprained his ankle last Thursday, and hasn't been able to get around well since. Yesterday, my grandparents lent him a pair of crutches, which has helped him get around. Except that he doesn't have much finesse with the crutches, and has had a hard time getting used to them.

Anyway, the cause of his sprain? He was weeding the garden. That's it. I don't know how he hurt himself weeding the garden, but he did. He was sitting cross-legged, and said that his ankle started to hurt, so he stood up to move around, and there you have it, a sprained ankle.

I told him he still doesn't get out of weeding the garden.

Work...

I mentioned in a previous post that there are some things going on at work. This has been consuming a lot of my thoughts lately, and since things are moving forward there, I think I can go ahead and talk about it.

Over the course of the last two months, someone has stolen a significant amount of cash from the hotel. The way it has happened has led us to believe that it has to be a front desk clerk. This is very troubling to me, as I am the Front Desk Manager. I'm sick about it, honestly. I really care about each of these desk clerks, and I can't imagine any of them doing this. But I just don't see how it was anybody else. Brandon, the GM, wrote a memo to all of the front desk clerks and said that if no one comes forward by Monday (tomorrow), he's going to call the police and have them investigate. I really hope whoever is responsible comes forward. I just want to know the truth and be able to deal with it and move on.

The Name Game

So now begins the process of choosing a name for this little girl. Kid and Shinzing are out. Sorry, Michael.

Jeff likes some pretty funky names. Like Gabriella. Gabriella? He says we can call her Gabby, which is cute, but Gabriella? It's too much of a mouthful.

Jeff thinks some of the names I like are pretty funky, too. Like Lorelei. I think Lorelei is a cute name. And you can call her Lori, or Lola.

My favorite names so far are Anna Helen (after my great-grandmother, grandmother, and Jeff's mom), Lyndi Ann, Ella (no middle name yet), and Lorelei (no middle name there, either, although I do like Anna Lorelei). If we name this baby Anna, we will likely call her Annie to eliminate confusion with Jeff's mom.

And speaking of names, Michael has taken to calling me Old-Timer. Where did he get this, you ask? From the movie Fox and the Hound. Copper calls Chief "Old-Timer." So Michael thinks it's funny to call me Old-Timer. Even though I really doubt he knows what that means, I'd prefer he didn't call me that.

So back to baby names. Any suggestions?

Drumroll please.......

The ultrasound today went very well. Michael and Faith will be having...

A Little Sister!!

Michael has decided that her name will be Kid. I explained that Kid can be her nickname, just like we call him Bud and we call Faith Sis or Doop. But she has to have a real name too. We asked what he thought her real name should be, and he said, "Kid! I just chose Kid!"

I guess it's better than Shinzing.

First real hairdo (sort of)

Today I attempted to put Faith's meager strand of hair into a ponytail. I was going to do two pigtails, but alas, she doesn't have enough hair. So this is the only hairdo she will have for a while:
The two kiddos together:

A fun weekend

I'm at work again. It seems the best time to post on my blog is when I'm at work. But that's also where my pictures are NOT, so my posts aren't as colorful or as beautiful as they would be if I were posting from home. But then, I dont' take tons of photos anyway, so maybe it doesn't matter where I post.

Anyway, we spent the weekend at Bear Lake with the extended Hansen family. It was a lot of fun. Michael had a great time playing in the water, but poor little Faith was disfigured by mosquito bites that swelled into ginormous lumps on her head, right shin, and left eye. She looked like she had been badly beaten, just without the bruising. But she is almost back to normal now, with just red spots that look like normal mosquito bites instead of huge lumps. I guess some kids just react really badly to bites. We ended up staying an extra night with just my family, and that was nice. I enjoyed not taking the tent down that first morning (thanks, Mom and Dad, for setting it up for us). I also enjoyed just being there without a ton of yelling cousins. I love my cousins, but now that they're mostly teenagers, they're really noisy.

We have our big ultrasound tomorrow. To be honest, I've been so busy with other things that I had almost forgotten about it. I guess I'd better find a baby-sitter, unless I want the kids coming with us. I'm excited to find out the sex of this little baby, so Jeff and I can start arguing over names. (What's to argue about? I'll win anyway, won't I?) Actually, I'm more excited to plan. Once I know whether it will be Michael or Faith who shares a room with the baby, I can get to it. I'll be sure to let you all know. I know, Mom, that you're anxious to start sewing.

So I guess it's back to work. To be honest, I'd rather be anywhere than here tonight. We've got a night auditor quitting (hopefully I can convince him to stay one more week), and then some new developments that have me really stressed out, but I can't talk about them yet. I know, you all hate that kind of comment. I hate it too. But I promise I'll explain when things are resolved.

A Minor Gripe

Why is it that people blame the front desk clerk for their own misunderstandings? Case in point: a lady checked into a room tonight. A couple of hours later, she called down to the desk. I answered the phone, and she asked what time the continental breakfast was served. I explained that we don't offer a continental breakfast, but we have coffee, tea, and hot cocoa in the lobby, and we have an excellent restaurant that opens at 6:00 (we go through this shpill 90 times a day). She said, "Then why does my Triple A book have a little knife and fork symbol under your hotel listing?" I explained (nicely) that the knife and fork symbol means there is a restaurant available. It does not mean that we offer free breakfast. She then told me that she would need a complaint card when she checks out because she was going to submit a complaint about our false advertising. Huh?

Thankful Thursday

1. This face:

2. This face:
3. This face:
I know, these photos were taken before Christmas LAST year, but they're the most recent ones I have access to at work.

4. Wal-Mart. Yeah, so Wal-Mart is one of those places that people don't like to admit they shop. But honestly, where else can you get a kickboard, water shoes for a toddler, food for a trip to Bear Lake, air mattresses for the whole family, and a pump to fill said air mattresses? Without breaking the bank? Not too many places.

5. A planned weekend with family at Bear Lake. I love Bear Lake. It's just such a pretty, peaceful place. Well, when you're way out on the water, it's peaceful. We'll mostly be on the beach, which means it will be loud and crazy running after kids and making sure they don't disappear or get in fights or hold each other under the water. But it will still be fun.

First Pedicure

Faith can't get over her toenails being pink. She keeps holding her feet in her hands and trying to get a closer look. It's cute.

Thankful Thursday

1. Jeff. Not many husbands would help with the canning. In fact, he's doing more than helping. He's pretty much DOING the canning, and I'm helping him. We drove up to Willard yesterday and bought 65 pounds of cherries (at $1 a pound for the 60 pounds, and the other 5 pounds were free because we spent $60). The bad part of canning all these cherries is trying to keep the house clean enough to show while we do it. Riiiiiigghht.

2. Cheap fruit. A buck a pound was a great deal on cherries, since they're $1.50 at most other fruit stands in Willard, and at least $2 in any of the stores. And since cherries are one of the foods that Michael will eat (when we puree them with applesauce), we're canning as much as we can this year. In fact, I will shamelessly ask anyone who has ANY extra fruit to send it my way, so we can stock up on foods that Michael will eat. Even though it's MUCH cheaper than baby food in jars, it's still expensive to buy enough of the foods that he'll eat. Peaches, pears, apricots, cherries, raspberries, blackberries, apples, winter squash, and probably some others as well. We'll even pick it!

3. Michael's swimming lessons. He has finished his first session (Level 1 - Water Exploration), and is now halfway through his second session. He LOVES swimming lessons. Even more now that Hunter is taking them with him. I took him swimming last night and we practiced what he has been learning in class. Can I just say, for a timid kid who for a long time refused to let go of me or Jeff while in the water, he has done fabulously. Last night I put his arm floaties on him and let him go, and he just took off. He was cruising all over. Not very quickly, since he hasn't quite figured out coordinated kicking. But he sure loved it. And I am SO proud of him.

4. Hugs from Faith and Michael. They are so sweet. Faith will just come over and lean against me and hug my legs, or whatever she can reach. And Michael will come over and say, "Hey, I need some loves," and give me a hug. I LOVE it.

5. This new baby. In the last couple of days, I have started to feel movements. Little tiny light ones that feel more like bubbles. But since with all of my babies, I've felt those first movements at 17 weeks to the day, I'm pretty sure that's what I'm feeling. It's nice to finally feel the baby. This pregnancy has been pretty good so far. I'm past the really tired stage, and the pain I've had with my other pregnancies hasn't shown up yet in this one, so I'm feeling good. I do have an annoying pain in my right leg just behind my knee, but it's bearable most of the time. Being pregnant has two very big bonuses: 1) no period; and 2) you never have to suck in your stomach.

All in all, life is good. We're going to a Sabin family barbecue tomorrow, and then we'll head to Delta for the 4th of July. I LOVE the 4th of July. I love the parades in the small towns, the demolition derby, the fireworks, being with family, seeing the American flag everywhere, and everything else.